Pasta Outperforms Computers For Earthquake Modeling

Posted by timothy on Monday January 6, 2003 @08:59AM from the and-for-eating dept.

Judebert writes "Looks like Penn State has gone organic... at least where earthquake prediction is concerned. OK, really, they were trying to physically model friction forces, with respect to earthquakes. Since the glass tubes they needed were slow to arrive, they substituted angel hair pasta instead. (Does anyone but me think this sentence should be followed by "Hilarity Ensues"?) Apparently this physical model gives better (and faster) results than the numerical model they use on their computers. Instead of slashdotting Penn, you can also check out the near-perfect duplicate article at Science Daily."

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Penn State, not Penn, Timothy by typical+geek · 2003-01-06 09:51 · Score: 1, Flamebait

Penn is short for the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school in Philadelphia for rich people too dumb to get into Princeton, Yale, Harvard of Cornell, and famous for being the alma mater of those whinging crybabies of Thirtysomething.

Penn State is a cheap state school in the middle of Pennsylvania famous for alcohol overconsumption and Joe Paterno.